Geraldo Rivera announced on Fox News that he's not running for the U.S. Senate. Rivera had previously used his Fox News platform to test the waters for his potential Republican candidacy.

In January, Rivera said on his Cumulus radio program that he was "truly contemplating" running for the U.S. Senate. He then used platforms on Fox News and Fox News Latino to, in his words, "hone a message" for his possible campaign until "it's no longer legal" to do so (a move that drew criticism from media ethicists). Rivera appeared on Fox & Friends and wrote columns for Fox News Latino (see here, and here) to outline his campaign's message and deliver, in the words of Fox host Steve Doocy, his "stump speech."

Speaking on Fox & Friends this morning, Rivera said that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's special election announcement effectively ended the possibility of him running, and said he'll "stay right here" on Fox. Rivera expanded on his decision in a Fox News Latino column, in which he invoked the The Lord of the Rings and Don Quixote.

Had Rivera run for office, he likely would have met the same unsuccessful fate as several other recent Fox News employees-turned-candidates. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich won publicity, but not the Republican presidential nomination, in 2012. Angela McGlowan finished a distant third in a 2010 Republican primary for a congressional seat. And Pete Snyder lost his bid to be the 2013 Republican nominee for Virginia Lt. Governor.

While Rivera has taken himself out of the running, Fox News contributors Scott Brown, Allen West, and Liz Cheney still appear to be contemplating future runs for various political offices.

Jonathan Karl's Report Gives Fodder To Right-Wing Scandal Mongers

ABC News is buying into right-wing scandal mongering over the tragic September 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, with an "exclusive" report that doesn't stand up to minimal scrutiny, with flaws that are being used by the right to call for a major investigation.

The so-called "exclusive" report, posted at ABCNews.com, purports to uncover dramatic new developments in the right wing's Benghazi witch hunt, but in reality it is little more than a rehash of previously covered debates over whose input was given to the early draft of intelligence talking points put together in the early days of the investigation into the attacks. None of this largely rehashed debate disproves what Gen. David Petraeus, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified in November: that the intelligence community signed off on the final draft of the talking points, and that references to terrorist groups in Libya were removed in order to avoid tipping off those groups.

The May 10 ABC News report focuses on the much discussed CIA talking points that were prepared in the days immediately after the September 11, 2012, attack, and which were used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in her appearance on several news programs to discuss those attacks. Nothing in the ABC News report focuses on the actual events of September 11, 2012, only on the editing process of a talking points memo and what information should be made available for public dissemination during an ongoing investigation into a terrorist attack:

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

Karl goes on to explore whether this disproves comments White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made in late November 2012, more than 2 months after the attack, about the role the White House and the State Department played in editing the final version of those talking points; whether the editing process proves that the White House was engaged in an effort to downplay the role of terrorism in its public statements immediately after the attack; and whether the editing process proves that the talking points were scrubbed of references to terror solely for political reasons.

Karl's report feeds into the right-wing conspiracy mongering over the Benghazi attacks and the desperate campaign to fabricate a cover-up. Friday morning, Fox News hosts cited the report as evidence that a major investigation was needed.

Yet Karl's speculation is easily disproved.

The entirety of the ABC News report focuses on emails that lay out the process of drafting the intelligence community's talking points and the debate over whether to include references to terrorist groups, and whether those references were "scrubbed" to cover up failures at the State Department. What Karl doesn't point out is that the former head of the CIA said that this is not the case. After Petraeus gave closed-door testimony before congressional leaders in November, The New York Times reported:

David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers on Friday that classified intelligence reports revealed that the deadly assault on the American diplomatic mission in Libya was a terrorist attack, but that the administration refrained from saying it suspected that the perpetrators of the attack were Al Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers to avoid tipping off the groups.

Mr. Petraeus, who resigned last week after admitting to an extramarital affair, said the names of groups suspected in the attack -- including Al Qaeda's franchise in North Africa and a local Libyan group, Ansar al-Shariah -- were removed from the public explanation of the attack immediately after the assault to avoiding alerting the militants that American intelligence and law enforcement agencies were tracking them, lawmakers said.

Karl also forwards the notion that the White House was aggressively trying to downplay the role that terrorism played for political reasons while the President was calling the attacks an act of terror at the same time. In his first public comments after the attack, President Obama very clearly referred to the attack as an act of terror. One day later, Obama again referred to the Benghazi attacks as an act of terror. Those comments came September 12 and September 13. Yet Karl implies that edits to a document that were made on September 14, after Obama had already labeled the attack an act of terror, demonstrate that the administration was trying to downplay the role that terror played.

This leaves Karl with the "exclusive" that emails weighing in on early drafts of the talking points amounts to a contradiction with comments Carney made in November:

"Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC's best assessments of what they thought had happened," Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. "The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' because 'consulate' was inaccurate."

But as Carney notes in comments printed at the end of the ABC News report, there has never been a question that multiple agencies had input into the formation of the talking points, which in the end were drafted by the intelligence community:

"The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points," Carney said. "The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn't the substance here."

ABC is left with a major exclusive dissecting the distinction between input and editing.

Fox News has repeatedly invoked the Boston bombings to suggest that immigration reform could exacerbate existing problems within the immigration system. However, their commentary actually highlights shortcomings that the bipartisan Senate bill will address in full.

Fox News pushed Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's theory that the supervised release of some undocumented immigrants is "payback" for her state's immigration enforcement efforts. But the release was nationwide, not just in Arizona, and was in response to impending budget cuts from sequestration.

Geraldo Rivera asked Fox News colleague Karl Rove when he would "start vetting me" as a U.S. Senate candidate through Rove's recently formed political group during an interview on Rivera's radio program. Rove replied that he would when Rivera gets "serious about being a candidate" and that it's "not enough to just talk about it, you've got to file a committee and go raise money."

Both Rivera and Rove have been using their Fox News platforms to further their respective political interests. Rivera has said that he's seriously considering a run for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey and will continue to appear on Fox News to "hone a message" until "it's no longer legal" to do so (a move that has drawn criticism from media ethicists).

Rove, meanwhile, has used his Fox News platform to push the interests of his group American Crossroads, which recently launched the Conservative Victory Project. The New York Times reports that the group will work "to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts."

Rove's project has come under heavy fire from conservative pundits, includingFox News contributors, for favoring the Republican establishment over conservative principles. Rivera defended Rove, stating: "I agree with you that the Republican Party has to be a lot more open-minded and not nearly as rigidly ideological and has to stop killing themselves in the primaries." He later added that he hopes "the GOP heeds your advice, which is stellar as usual." Rivera recently wrote in a Fox News Latino column that he's a Republican but "voted for Obama/Biden" because of abortion, immigration reform, and marriage equality.

Journalism veterans and media ethicists are urging Geraldo Rivera to give up his many media perches if he intends to run for U.S. Senate, saying his Cumulus radio program and Fox News platform give him an unfair and unethical advantage.

Since Rivera first revealed his intention to explore a run for the U.S. Senate from New Jersey on his syndicated radio show, he has promoted the idea on Fox News Channel and the Fox News Latino website.

During an appearance Friday on Fox & Friends, Rivera suggested that he will continue to appear on the network while he "hone[s] a message," and do so until "it's no longer legal."

On the January 31 edition of his Cumulus radio show, Rivera told listeners that he is "truly contemplating" running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey. Following a discussion this morning of various news events, including the suicide attack in Turkey, Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson asked Rivera about the "firestorm" he had created by announcing a possible run. In response, Rivera launched into what co-host Steve Doocy appropriately labeled a "stump speech."

In both his Fox & Friends appearance and his Fox News Latino column, Rivera touted his stance on various political issues. During the Fox & Friends interview, Rivera suggested that he is a "modern Republican" that could appeal to "a point of view that is unrepresented in states like New Jersey."

Asked to comment on the potential conflicts and unfair advantage of his candidacy by email, Rivera responded with this statement:

The campaign is still a year away, so I still have significant exploration ahead before I commit. In the meantime the ideas I published today in my FNL column are the ideas that I've been unabashedly articulating for years on Fox and here on Cumulus radio.

Cumulus Spokesperson Golden Davidson also defended Rivera and hinted that he is unlikely to be asked to give up his radio perch anytime soon, stating in an email:

Talk radio hosts talk about lots of things and if at some point this is more than talk we'll address the issue appropriately then.

But mixing his political aspirations and his media posts did not sit well with several news veterans and journalism observers who told Media Matters that Rivera was engaged in a clear conflict of interest that should be stopped immediately.

"When I first saw this, the thing that really concerns me again is not so much Geraldo doing this, but I am surprised that Fox News is letting itself be used this way," said David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun's media critic. "It is really, honestly one of the most troubling [things], really wrong that Fox allows itself to play this political role the way it did with [Rick] Santorum and with [Newt] Gingrich, to go on as long as they did into those primaries and be on the air. These guys have benefited enormously from being on Fox and having access to that large and active political audience they have.

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera is poised to become the latest Republican to leverage their Fox News platform into a possible run at political office. During an appearance this morning on Fox & Friends, Rivera suggested that he will continue to appear on the network while he "hone[s] a message," and do so until "it's no longer legal."

On the January 31 edition of his Cumulus radio show, Rivera told listeners that he is "truly contemplating" running for U.S. Senate in New Jersey. Following a discussion this morning of various news events, including the suicide attack in Turkey, Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson asked Rivera about the "firestorm" he had created by announcing a possible run. In response, Rivera launched into what co-host Steve Doocy appropriately labeled a "stump speech."

Joined by onscreen text featuring phrases like "Senator Rivera?," Rivera touted himself as a "modern Republican" that could appeal to "a point of view that is unrepresented in states like New Jersey." Calling for a "new vitalization of the Republican Party," Rivera explained his desire to cut the deficit and rein in entitlements while also indicating his support of gay marriage, Roe v. Wade, and immigration reform.

When Doocy asked Rivera if he's aware that he "can't be on TV or radio" if he officially declares his candidacy, Rivera explained that the race is "still a good year away," so he has "some time to hone a message," presumably using his Fox and WABC platforms. Later in the conversation, after Doocy encouraged him to make any official announcement on Fox & Friends, a laughing Rivera responded, "Well, I'll be here every Friday, until as such time as it's no longer legal."

Rivera is the latest in an increasingly long line of Fox News personalities who have attempted to use the network as a springboard into political office.

While discussing the recent murder of Kasandra Perkins at the hands of her boyfriend, NFL player Jovan Belcher, Fox News host Dana Perino claimed women who are "victims of violence" need to "make better decisions." Perino's comment is just the latest in a long line of Fox figures placing blame on female victims of crime or alleged crimes.

Fox News' Geraldo Rivera condemned his colleague Eric Bolling for pushing what Rivera called "an absolute misrepresentation" aimed at scoring "a political point" over the tragic September 11 attack on a U.S. Consulate in Libya.

Discussing what reports say were separate attacks on the compound in Benghazi, separated by hours, Bolling criticized the Obama administration for ignoring calls to send help after the initial attack, saying: "So Washington, the State Department, the CIA, does nothing, sends no help."

Rivera immediately took Bolling to task, calling him a "politician" who was "misleading the American people."

As Rivera pointed out, a separate team from Tripoli was dispatched to Benghazi. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday:

Meanwhile, in Tripoli, another CIA team mobilized to provide additional security for the CIA annex and help evacuate Americans from Benghazi. The team went to the Tripoli airport with a suitcase full of cash to find a plane to fly to Benghazi. They were delayed because Libyan authorities insisted the Americans be accompanied by a larger Libyan force on the ground in Benghazi, which took time to assemble, U.S. officials say. Libyan officials attribute the delay to the Americans not sharing key logistical details with them.

At about 7 p.m. -- 1 a.m. in Benghazi -- the team touched down at the Benghazi airport. The team had to negotiate for transport into Benghazi, the senior U.S. intelligence official said. When the team learned the ambassador was missing and the annex attackers had dispersed, they focused on the security situation at the hospital, where the ambassador was thought to be.

By the time the team was able to arrange transportation with an armed escort, the intelligence official said, they had learned that the ambassador was almost certainly dead and the security at the hospital was unclear, so they decided to go to the annex to help with the evacuation. The ambassador was pronounced dead shortly after 2 a.m.

Geraldo Rivera called himself "the conscience of Fox and the rest of the cable news world" when asked Tuesday about his objections to the use of the terms "illegals" and "aliens" in reference to undocumented immigrants.

He also added that he has made his opposition to such phrases "very, very clear" to Fox employees "from top to bottom," but stopped short of any further direct criticism of the network.

"If I'm going to be the conscience of Fox and the rest of the cable news world, then it is a role that I enthusiastically embrace," he told Media Matters during an appearance at a WABC Radio job fair in New York City.

His comments came in response to a question about a May 4 online column Rivera wrote for Fox News Latino, in which he denounced the use of certain terms to describe immigrants, especially "aliens" and "illegals."

In the column, Rivera took news outlets, including Fox, to task for using such terms, writing:

Like the words 'Jew' or 'slob' or 'slut', the phrase 'illegal alien' has the elegance of being harsh, but defensible, if accurate. Although it can be used as a cutting reference, it can still be uttered in polite company without fear of raising many eyebrows, especially among those who feel similarly negative about the individual being described.

Asked Tuesday if he had raised the issue with Fox executives, Rivera said, "I've talked to all my colleagues, everyone knows my feelings, from top to bottom. I think the combination of those two pejoratives, 'illegal' and 'aliens,' is really a way to demean people, to separate people. I've made my feelings very, very clear to my colleagues at Fox."

Rivera's complaints have as yet fallen on deaf ears. The "illegals" slur is regularly used on Fox's "straight news" and opinion programming and websites. The week before Rivera published his column, his Fox colleagues Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, and Mike Huckabee all defended such rhetoric in separate segments criticizing what O'Reilly termed the "crazy" opposition to the term by the "far left."

In fact, the same day Rivera published his column, TheO'Reilly Factor guest host Laura Ingraham re-aired the segment in which O'Reilly was "taking on that far left campaign that wants to ban the word "illegal" when it comes to -- I'm saying it, wait - illegal aliens." Earlier in that same broadcast, Ingraham hosted Rivera to discuss a woman who brought her child into a tanning salon with her and a lethal hazing case at a Florida college.

Rivera credited Fox for letting him make his views clear on the air, even if the network would not ban the use of such phrases.

"And the great thing though, in fairness to Fox, they let me say and they let me publish that and, you know, I say it on the air as well."